ICRC, OSCE, Kiev agree on visit to jailed Donetsk people’s governor

BELLINZONA, April 26 /ITAR-TASS/. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and Kiev have agreed on a visit to Donetsk people’s governor Pavel Gubarev, who has been under arrest since March 6 on trumped-up charges.

The visit will be paid at 18:00 Kiev time on Saturday, April 26, by OSCE officials currently in Ukraine, ICRC spokesperson for Europe and Central Asia David-Peirre Marquet told ITAR-TASS.

He said the choice in favour of the OSCE had been made in keeping with the Geneva accord reached on April 17 by top diplomats from Russia, the United States, the European Union and Ukraine.

On Thursday, April 24, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow had sent letters to the OSCE and the ICRC requesting immediate access to Gubarev.

“We will push for immediate access to Gubarev to make sure that he has no problems with health,” Lavrov said. “We will of course continue efforts aimed at ensuring his immediate release as a political prisoner.”

Lavrov said in an interview with the RT television channel on April 23 that despite “an agreement on amnesty for political prisoners, Donetsk Region people’s governor Pavel Gubarev is in prison. Gubarev never seized buildings, he was arrested only for calls for a referendum on federalisation. Gubarev is a political prisoner.”

A crowd of demonstrators in a square in the centre of the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk on March 1 proclaimed Pavel Gubarev people’s governor. The Ukrainian Security Service SBU promptly opened a criminal case against him on the suspicion of calls for changing Ukraine’s borders.